Start getting reading for #wolweek 16-23 November 2015. It’s time to start working out loud now. How are you going to leverage #wolweek? There are lots of options to connect, share and solve.
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Author: simongterry
Be good enough
Talk to otherwise successful people about their unrealised ambitions and one phrase often comes up: ‘I am not sure I am good enough’.
When you dig into this uncertainty, they are the only ones imposing this doubt. All sorts of information suggests they are in fact ready to start. Whether because of a fixed mindset or some other fear, these talented people resist testing their capabilities or accepting the voice of their chorus of supporters. I recognise this fear because I’ve battled it myself. However, I’ve found only one antidote. Start.
Start. You are good enough. Good enough to try and to learn. Good enough to start does not require mastery. You can’t get mastery unless you start.
Be good enough. Start doing today.
The Future of Work is Flexible Talent
Your organisation has amazing talent. They want to grow, develop and make a big impact on the world. So why risk losing them over the constraints of a job.
Little boxes
You want digital talent but your employment agreement prevents their involvement in any other business activities or any forms of collaboration externally. You want thought leaders but your media policy prevents people from speaking externally. Your top talent wants development but it’s hard to find an internal program to meet their needs but you can’t pay for an external one. You ask your talent to report to people they don’t respect and wonder why they leave.
Your little boxes are killing your talent.
Flexibility
On the street today I ran into a former colleague who works full time and consults on days of unpaid leave. Another friend is a global thought leader who speaks on days he’s not being paid by his global organisation. The list of people who dabble in businesses on the side is huge.
When innovation is at the edge and learning happens mostly by experience, these are the opportunities that your talent craves. Release the shackles. Let them after it.
Set some ground rules. In each case above the successful examples involve simple ground rules against double dipping, conflicts and confidentiality. These rules are so obvious your talent will sort it out anyway.
None of these people worry about delivering their performance expectations because they are managed to outcomes. They have the autonomy, the coaching and trust to get the job done (& do more).
Remove the boxes and you will be thrilled with what your employees bring back to the organisation. Most importantly, create a flexible mix that is unique to the pair of you and they will stay.
Experimentation Is The Out-Perform Strategy Of The Future | This Much We Know
‘My interest in hacks come from my keener interest in the future of work, and its unremitting demand on the common worker to adapt, learn continually, and upskill. The future worker needs to test themselves, to build resilience, to become antifragile.
Fundamentally, we can do this through experimentation, a willingness to try things and (hopefully) safe-fail.’ -Jonathan Anthony
Experimentation Is The Out-Perform Strategy Of The Future | This Much We Know
The Cancer called Strong Leadership
Cancer begins when a cell abandons it purpose in the body and begins to replicate. Because cancer cells look like healthy cells, they defeat the body’s defences. Cancer kills because invasive cells strangle the healthy ones.
‘Strong Leadership’ is a cancer. With three word slogans, assertiveness and decisiveness, strong leadership tricks people into comfort, rather than defence. By refusing to admit error or debate, strong leadership rapidly becomes dangerously comfortable. Suddenly strong leadership replicates rapidly squeezing out real leadership.
‘Strong leadership’ is direction. As a style, direction works in a limited range of leadership scenarios where actions are predictable and little flexibility is required. Direction requires little or no trust. Direction doesn’t allow for the system to learn or even admit mistakes. The more complicated and complex the scenarios the more unhealthy direction is.
We are in a highly complex and interdependent world. Simple direction won’t cut it any more. We need to engage the learning and human potential of everyone. To do that we need to influence and we need to inspire. We will need to collaborate and consult the ideas of others. We will need to learn adaptive as we take the opportunities around us to make change. The work of making the future will belong to everyone, not just ‘leaders’.
The danger we face is that strong leadership strangles the debate and engagement required. Taking the high ground of comfort, strong leadership replicates at the expense of the leadership practices required.
The future of leadership won’t seem as clear cut and may even feel risky. We won’t be as certain as what we are doing. We will be more certain as to where we are going and why. We can have confidence in our own abilities. Let us put our faith in our own potential and the potential of others.
A Hole in The Bucket List
Plug the purposeful hole in your bucket list.
On the weekend, I made english muffins. I have now made four of my big five baking goals. After sourdough bread, bagels, pretzels, crumpets and now english muffins, I only have croissants to go.
Hang on a minute. Big five baking goals? That sounds like a bucket list.
What’s wrong with a bucket list?
Even if I put aside the morbid nature of a death checklist, the problem with bucket lists is that they have become part of our consumer society. Bucket list moments are experiences that you are meant to have. They are not who you are.
Because bucket lists are consumption driven, they always grow and there is no pressure to have a consistent logic for inclusion. (For example, croissants is the 6th member of my big five baking goals). Your bucket list can never be complete. More unique experiences are always being created. Bucket lists creep into every aspect of life. Bucket lists run on ‘keeping up with the Jones’ logic. If everyone else is running with the Bulls at Pamplona, then we should too. (Why didn’t I include doughnuts?)
All these experiences are an effort to fill a life that lacks the satisfaction of purpose. Bucket lists leak through the lack of purpose.
Plug the Purposeful Hole in the Bucket
A life lived with purpose is not about what you have. A life lived with purpose is about who you are. Purpose defines the reason you do what you do. Purpose is our chosen effect on others and the world.
Don’t chase a random list of experiences. There’s no chance it will make your life complete. Start by doing one purposeful act instead. One purposeful act might be all it takes.
I’m not looking to bake my way up culinary peaks. I’m just aiming for one joyous family meal at a time. Now about those croissants…
How are you going to throw disruption & delight into your work today?
Your work is ready for you to light the fuse. The obstacles are the work. Your purpose is in the work. Start.
Image credit: Banksy
Speaking to Senior Managers
Senior leadership engagement in change is a hot topic. Social collaboration makes the absence of leader engagement obvious. I’m often asked to speak on collaboration, learning and leadership to senior executives. As I used to be one, people want me to share a little of my passion for these topics. Here are some suggestions to guide you in your senior leadership engagement.
It’s not a priority
Collaboration, leadership and learning is unlikely to be a priority for your senior leaders. Sure they’ll discuss it but they don’t want to do it. They don’t know anyone who got made a CEO because his team was the most collaborative or the most agile. There is always a bigger business or customer problem that is on their mind.
Rather than engage in an argument as to why this mindset is wrong (it is – see Big Learning), I start with understanding the real business problems that they want to solve. Once we understand the business problems we can connect collaboration, learning and leadership as solutions to that problem.
Avoid Capitalised Nouns
Senior executives are busy and distracted. They don’t want jargon and hype. They are allergic to empty captalised nouns. The more you use words like Collaboration, Leadership, Engagement etc without making them tangible the less credible you are. The more it sounds like a futuristic vision or a quixotic quest the less relevant you are to their world.
Tell Stories
Stories make change tangible to busy & smart people. Ben Elias of ideocial.com remarked to me recently that it is hard for people to conceive of how their organisation could be highly collaborative. They have never seen it, so the ideas and practices don’t connect with their reality. Specific stories make that connection. Tell rich and engaging stories of how things can be and how to get there.
Ask for something specific
There’s nothing worse that taking the time of senior leaders, winning their support and not being able to define exactly what you want them to do. Always have a specific ask of them ready to go. Have two in case they say yes to the first. Better yet have a personal ask that is framed as something simple that they can agree to do to sustain change. The 3 simple habits of working out loud was designed as one such example.
When you are done, Stop. Leave.
Senior executive time is precious. Give it back to them. Tempting as it may be to bask in the glory of a good meeting and deepen rapport, you will win more credit by leaving when you have done your job. Remember when something is not a priority you are always on borrowed time.
More Talk. Better Action #futureofwork
Many people are frustrated by the email, the meetings and the empty talk of the modern workplace. Often this translates into a view that the future of work will be ‘Less Talk. More Action’. They are usually disappointed.
Organising collaboration takes a lot of talk, especially among peers. Finding purpose takes talk. The ambitions for less talk fail because we have better talk. This better talk addresses the issues our email and meeting doesn’t – surfacing the real issues, sharing ideas, aligning and engaging people.
Better action results from all the talk. The actions will be shaped by a richer understanding and be framed to drive further learning to be shared. Those driving the action will understand their roles, the context, and the purpose enabling them to adapt through further conversation. Our organisations today have too much talk because orders from HiPPOs save discussion at the beginning but they create a flurry of other conversations to clean up the mess. In the future of work we will need people to discuss and sort those issues first and ongoing.
Sharing is not Enough
All over social networks people share links and opinions. Meet ups are held to enable more sharing face to face. Networks share information every day.
Sharing is happening more than ever but it is not enough. Sharing information is a critical part of the value maturity model. Sharing builds trust, deepens understanding and fosters connection. Sharing should be a sign the network is taking off.
You only take off if you have somewhere new to go. A lot of the networks sharing information never mature beyond a flurry of content marketing. Their links and messages are the same as every other network.
Shared Purpose and Collaborative Work
Any reason will bring you together to share information. Before people can work collaboratively they need some overlap of their personal purposes. They need to have some commonality of the change they want to make. Shared purpose takes the conversation deeper and creates incentives for action.
As obvious as it sounds, people won’t do collaborative work unless there is work to be done. In dispersed networks, don’t assume everyone can see the work opportunities. Mostly people will see the barriers to work.
The role of Change Agents in a network is to connect people around shared purpose and to help everyone to see the work to be done. The generative leadership of change agents will help lead people to new ways of interacting by solving real problems. If you don’t yet have change agents, community managers and other leaders will need to show the way.
Links, pictures, jokes and opinions are a good start but not enough. The purpose is in the work.